Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

NYT:

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — More than 150 gun owners turned in semiautomatic weapons and gun parts to the police in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Saturday, the first day of nationwide gun buyback events after the government banned most such firearms in the wake of a terrorist attack on mosques in the city.

Mike Johnson, the commander of the district’s police department, told reporters that gun owners would be paid a total of close to $300,000 for the 224 now-illegal weapons handed over during the five-hour event.

[ … ]

“They were surprised that they were not able to leave with their firearms when they heard the prices and were not happy with them,” she said.

The most amusing thing about this is that it is reported as a success, but it involved only a few hundred gun owners.  What do you reckon word of pissed off gun owners will do to the coming swarms of people ready to turn in guns?  In related news, changes have come to New Zealand.  A national Islamic call to prayer was issued back in March.

What?  They couldn’t trust the government?

Resolve never to be disarmed.

Prince Law.

Late yesterday, I received an email from an individual containing a letter from ATF which was a response to a correspondence requesting the correct method to “measure a firearm with a ‘stabilizing brace’ and folding adaptor.” It was explained that the correspondence was sent in the form of an email over a year ago and that the person had received a response via email shortly after it was sent. This letter was unsolicited and came over a year after the original request and response.

[ … ]

Based on the letter, ATF is taking the position that because a stabilizing brace is not an integral part of the firearm, it is not relevant to the overall length measurement. Why does this matter? A number of individuals have been building AR pistols or other similar pistols that have utilized a stabilizing brace. Some have opted to add a vertical foregrip. However, based on this interpretation, those people may find that they have manufactured an “AOW”, which is subject to the restrictions of the National Firearms Act (“NFA”).

[ … ]

ATF has taken the position that once a vertical foregrip has been added to a firearm, it is no longer designed to be fired when held in one hand, removing it from the definition of a pistol, even though ATF previously lost this argument before the Ninth Circuit in U.S. v. Fix, 4 Fed. Appx. 324 (9th Cir. 2001).

Further, ATF has consistently held that the overall length of 26 inches is the breaking point for concealability. Put another way, if the firearm has an overall length of less than 26 inches, it places it into a category of arms that could be considered to be regulated by the NFA depending on their other characteristics. If it has an overall length greater than 26 inches, it could remove it from those class of firearms, again, depending on their characteristics.

Law-making by memorandum.  Any time you change your mind, just write a new note.

Related.

Daily Caller:

The Supreme Court should dismiss a challenge to New York City’s gun transportation ban because a new ordinance will moot the case, city lawyers told the justices Wednesday.

The ordinance and a newly enacted state law will give the plaintiffs who challenged the transportation ban everything they have sought in court, making dismissal the appropriate course, city lawyers wrote in a letter to the high court.

The new city regulation gives petitioners everything they have sought in this lawsuit,” assistant corporation counsel Richard Dearing wrote. “The new state law, upon signature by the governor, will make the case doubly moot.”

If the case is not dismissed, the city will continue arguing the dispute is moot in a legal brief due Aug. 5. They will not address the merits of the controversy, Dearing wrote.

If, however, this Court prefers to allow briefing (and potentially oral argument) to play out, respondents will file a brief on the designated due date maintaining in greater detail that the case is moot,” the letter reads.

Respondents do not intend to address whether the Constitution entitles petitioners (or any other residents of New York City with premises licenses) to transport their handguns from their homes in the city to second homes, or to firing ranges or shooting competitions beyond municipal borders, where they have a legal right to possess them. Respondents no longer have any stake in that legal question,” it adds.

It’s men like this who give other lawyers a bad name and reputation.

Essentially, they have presumed to boss the Supreme Court around, and told them that the case should be dismissed because it is moot, but if the case isn’t dismissed, they’ll just argue extensively in front of the court, attempting to embarrass everyone there, that the case is moot.

Not only that, they’ve conceded absolutely nothing, except what the petitioners ask for.  They didn’t concede that the constitution has any bearing on this, and they won’t argue the case on those merits.

Take note of the legal tricks and shenanigans here.  If the Supreme Court decides that the constitution does have bearing, and that they do in fact have a right under the constitution to what they asked for in their petition, New York lawyers can respond by saying that the Supreme Court case is and was un-argued.  The Supreme Court decided something that wasn’t asked, something the SCOTUS really doesn’t like to do.  Now, the court can do just that, but my bet is that they won’t, not with Roberts at the helm.

They’re taking their ball and going home because they’re bitches.

The giddy celebrations of the American left over the wonderful New Zealand law seem to have subsided, and you don’t hear much about it any more.

It was one of the defining moments as New Zealand grieved after a pair of deadly mosque attacks: a near-unanimous parliamentary vote in April to ban assault-style rifles and similar weapons.

The lawmakers’ move was immediately acclaimed by gun-control advocates worldwide as an example of decisive collective action in a nation unified in horror by the March 15 assaults in Christchurch that left 51 people dead.

Then the momentum began to slow.

Growing opposition from New Zealand’s pro-gun groups has complicated efforts to round up the now-banned firearms under a buyback program. Lawsuits are threatened.

Gun-control advocates argue that compensation rates may not be fair and warn of a possible spike in black-market sales.

The government, meanwhile, is faced with a sobering set of challenges over how to enforce the new law.

There is no national registry for many of the weapons targeted by the ban, including the AR-15 – a semiautomatic rifle that has been used in mass shootings in the United States and is often at the center of American gun-control debates.

As a result, estimates of the numbers of newly banned weapons vary widely. So far, about 700 firearms have been voluntarily surrendered.

Authorities are “operating a little bit in the dark,” said Joe Green, gun-safety specialist and former arms control manager for the New Zealand Police.

[ … ]

Stuart Nash, the minister for police, announced last week that nearly 200 collection events would take place over the next three months in community hubs, including in some of the country’s largest sports stadiums.

“We urge people to stay calm,” Mike Clement, New Zealand Police’s deputy commissioner of national operations, told The Washington Post.

“We acknowledge that you’re a law-abiding citizen and through no fault of your own you now find yourself in possession of firearms that are now illegal,” he said, but he noted that once the amnesty period expires, there is no excuse for holding on to weapons.

[ … ]

But Yasbek pointed out that some of the banned weapons, including AR-15 rifles, fall into Category “A” in the New Zealand licensing system, which means they were not required to be registered in police databases and as such will be impossible to trace.

“These weapons are unlikely to be confiscated by police because they don’t know of their existence,” she said. “These will become black-market weapons if their owners choose not to comply with the law and become criminals instead.”

That’ll do it.  Call them “criminals.”  That’ll make them turn in the guns.  I’m sure their feelings will be hurt by the indictment.

On the other hand, if you declare them all criminals, what have they got left to lose?  Why not convert them all to fully automatic?  If they’re going to traffic in the black market now, what’s to stop them from acquiring more powerful weaponry?

That may be a less than fortuitous turn of events for the New Zealand police, yes?  Too bad.  Should have thought about that beforehand.

American Suppressor Association:

Last week, Rep. Jennifer Wexton (VA-10) introduced H.R. 3404, the Empowering Law Enforcement for Safer Firearm Transfers Act. Her bill, the text of which was published today, would give Chief Law Enforcement Officers (CLEO) 90 days to assert uninhibited veto power over NFA applications. The American Suppressor Association is opposed to this unconstitutional attempt to create a local veto provision in the NFA process.

As drafted, local law enforcement would have absolute discretion to deny any applicant the right to acquire NFA items. The bill, which has intentionally vague standards, would unlawfully extend judicial powers to local law enforcement, allowing them to summarily deny the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens who have committed no crime.

Prior to the enactment of ATF 41F in July 2016, individual applicants were required to obtain a CLEO signature before submitting their Form 4. In many jurisdictions this amounted to a de facto ban on NFA ownership, as CLEOs could refuse to sign the application for any reason. Recognizing the overstep, the Obama administration eliminated the CLEO signoff requirement through regulatory reform by enacting ATF 41F.

Rep. Wexton’s bill is an unconstitutional step in the wrong direction that would do nothing to prevent violent crime. Under current law, requirements for comprehensive background checks are already in place. Every applicant on every NFA application must pass a check by the FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) before they are able to take possession of the NFA item.

The goal here isn’t safety, it’s control. As we’ve said before, the American Suppressor Association is unequivocally opposed to any attempt to ban or further regulate suppressors. We are unwavering in our support of the Second Amendment, as well as the individual right to possess suppressors.

I’m uncomfortable arguing that since everyone who purchases an NFA item already has to go through an NCIS there is no need for anything else.  The point is that there is no need for the NICS, and its very existence is an unconstitutional infringement.

Take note that this is a further empowerment of CLEOs, as if anyone thought the progressives would ever do anything else.  While this may go nowhere this term, it’s an indication of what’s coming when the progressives take back control of the House, Senate and W.H.

[From the video] It sounds like something a .gov would say, regardless of manifestation.

The owner of one of New Zealand’s largest ammunition companies has warned of a violent revolution if gun owners feel shortchanged by the Government’s gun buyback scheme.

Paul Clark’s company, New Zealand Ammunition, supplies both the Police and the Defence Force. He told RNZ‘s Checkpoint that many gun owners were planning to intentionally skirt the law by hiding their banned weapons.

He was “absolutely sure” that gun owners or organisations would appeal to the courts over the proposed prices of the gun buyback, and he was currently considering taking an action himself.

He said that if gun owners could not access the courts “the only alternative is revolution”.

When asked by host Lisa Owen what he meant by “revolution”, Clark said “Literally, what I just said. What have you got to lose? What other alternatives have you got in life?”

When Owen asked if he was talking about “a physical, violent, uprising,” Clark said it was likely.

“Yes, it could happen,” he said. “People are aggrieved. You’ve been screwed by a government for a crime you didn’t commit. How do you think that makes you feel?”

He said he knew of gun owners who were being radicalised as a result of the gun buyback.

“There’s a lot of pissed off people. It wouldn’t take a lot to set some people off. There’s some pretty heavy, strong, hard feelings out there.”

However, he said he would not go to police with the information he had, because “I didn’t create the problem, someone else did”.

He estimated that he would lose hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result of the gun ban, including orders that he has had to cancel.

On Thursday, Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Police Minister Stuart Nash announced the budget of the gun buyback scheme had been increased to $208 million.

A police price list showed that guns in new or near new condition would get 95 per cent of its base price, guns in used condition would receive 70 per cent of value, and guns in poor condition would see 25 per cent.

“Injury prevention program.”  It all sound so innocuous, yes?  But revolution.  What?

Over money?  A few dollars worth of firearms?  So what is it, my friends and readers in New Zealand?  Is it turn in your weapons, hide them, wait for fair payment, or revolt?

“Injury prevention program.”  Remember those words.  You might hear them again by another slick politician.

News from Florida:

LAKELAND — A 32-year-old woman was arrested on June 15 when she gathered her husband’s guns to turn them over to the Lakeland Police Department.

According to Courtney Irby’s arrest affidavit, she told police her husband had been taken to jail for trying to run over her with a car. Irby said she went to Joseph Irby’s apartment on Village Center Drive in Lakeland and searched for the guns she knew he had.

When she told a Lakeland police officer she had the guns with her to turn them in, he replied, “So are you telling me that you committed an armed burglary?” and Irby answered, “Yes, I am, but he wasn’t going to turn them in, so I am doing it,” according to reports.

Oh don’t even think that the cops had any sympathy for the husband or disagreement with the confiscation of guns.  The main problem here for the cops is that she broke the law.  It would have been okay if the cops did the deed.

Don’t you know – we can’t let people enforce the law, only LEOs can do that.

Breitbart:

Here are seven reasons why action against suppressors is politically risky:

1. A Suppressor Has Been Used in One Mass Shooting — A suppressor was used on one of the two guns in the Virginia Beach mass shooting. In other words, of all the mass shootings and/or high profile shootings constantly beamed into homes via the establishment media, a suppressor was used in one of them.
2. Police Still Heard the Gun Shots and Moved Toward Them to Find the Gunman — On May 31, Breitbart News reported Virginia Beach Police Chief James Cervera’s observation that police officers located the Virginia Beach gunman by moving toward the sound of his gun shots.
3. Suppressors Are Not Silencers — The fact that police moved toward the sound of the gunman’s shots, and that witnesses recalled hearing shot after shot, illustrates the fact that suppressors are not silencers. Rather, they are mufflers that remove the dangerous, high pitches associated with a gun shot.
4. Suppressors are Already the Most Highly Regulated Firearm Accessory in America — The acquisition of a suppressor requires the submission of fingerprints and photographs, and an in-depth background check. It requires the would-be buyer to pay a $200 federal tax and to register the suppressor with the government. The process of doing these things takes seven to nine months. The would-be buyer is then allowed to come in and receives a federal tax stamp, showing the suppressor is in the buyer’s name, and the buyer is then allowed to take possession of his suppressor.
5. Suppressor Acquisition Involves Many of the Democrats’ Favorite Gun Controls — As seen in the above paragraph, acquiring a suppressor involves a background check and registration, as well as fingerprinting and photographing the buyer. Yet when these gun controls fail–even in a single instance–Democrats push for more, more, more.
6. Suppressor Ownership is Legal in 42 States — The American Suppressor Association reports that suppressor ownership is legal in 42 states. Many of these states allow use of suppressors in hunting, for the noise-reducing benefits that hunters and the environment gain through suppression use.
7. Smacks of Bump Stock Ban — The fact that suppressors are not silencers; that they have been used in only one mass shooting; that police in that shooting could still hear the gunshots and run toward them; that witnesses could hear the shots and run from them; and that suppressors are legal in 42 states (which only magnifies their infrequent use in crime) is reminiscent of the way bump stocks were banned after they were used only once in a crime. Ironically, the one criminal use of bump stocks, and the criminal use of suppressors, were related in that the accessories were legally purchased both instances, then used against citizens in a situation where the citizens could not shoot back.

This doesn’t even begin to touch the risk he faces, and there may be no way to mitigate the risk even now.

First of all, let me say that if suppressors completely silenced a gun shot, there still wouldn’t be a basis for banning them.  “Shall not be infringed” means what it says, and you and I know it.  I just hate it when people stipulate the high ground to the opposition, inasmuch as admitting that in certain circumstances it just may be a good idea to regulate something-or-other.

Trump has already alienated gun owners with: “Take them first, follow due process later”, his choice of AG, his choice of ATF head, his bump stock ban, and now his statement of hatred for suppressors.  With his bump stock ban he turned more than half a million peaceable men into felons overnight with the stroke of a pen.

He thinks, or he has been told by his idiot advisors, that stunts to appease the Fudds will fix his problems with being a gun control advocate.  His idiot advisors are wrong in the superlative degree, and he will find that out in little more than a year.

But I said that “it wouldn’t surprise me to see a bill pass the House and Senate headed for Trump’s desk to outlaw them completely, something that is no more than a muffler intended to save the hearing of target shooters and sportsmen.”

True to form, when the controllers see an opening and a weakness, they’re waiting to pounce.

Gun silencers like the one used in a recent lethal shooting in Virginia Beach would be banned under legislation that U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey introduced Friday.

The Democrat unveiled the legislation at news conference in Trenton alongside Democratic Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora and representatives from the gun-control group Moms Demand Action.

Well, Mr. 3D-chess is in a pickle now, yes?  He’s gone on record saying that he hates suppressors, and that they are looking at what can be done.  The democrats have the House, and effectively the controllers hold the Senate.  They’ll send him a bill, and you can count on it.  What will he do then?

If he signs it, he will finish the alienation of the balance of the gun control crowd.  There are many more suppressor owners than bump stock owners.  If he doesn’t sign it, he’ll be pointed out as an inauthentic liar.

Does he even care at this point which it is?

David Codrea:

Unsurprisingly, Biden either doesn’t know what he’s talking about or he does and doesn’t care that he’s spreading lies. While we’ve seen numerous abortive attempts over the years to bring the technology to market, recent ones involve technologies relying on fingerprint recognition, bracelets and rings, and embedded RFID chips. If DNA is to be added into the mix, it would be interesting to see that idea fleshed out, including how the sample will be extracted and then analyzed to allow for immediate firing by “authorized” users under all conceivable real-world conditions.

Herschel grins and chuckles, begging for someone to take his challenge.

Perform a fault tree analysis of smart guns.  Use highly respected guidance like the NRC fault tree handbook.

Assess the reliability of one of my semi-automatic handguns as the first state point, and then add smart gun technology to it, and assess it again.  Compare the state points.  Then do that again with a revolver.  Be honest.  Assign a failure probability of greater than zero (0) to the smart technology, because you know that each additional electronic and mechanical component has a failure probability of greater than zero.

Get a PE to seal the work to demonstrate thorough and independent review.  If you can prove that so-called “smart guns” are as reliable as my guns, I’ll pour ketchup on my hard hat, eat it, and post video for everyone to see.  If you lose, you buy me the gun of my choice.  No one will take the challenge because you will lose that challenge.  I’ll win.  Case closed.  End of discussion.

Yet another note to the controllers.  Just ponder how awesome it would be for you to get a picture of a gun advocate eating crow (or in this case, his hard hat), covered with the thing he hates the most, Ketchup.

I beg you again, controllers, take my challenge, signed and sealed with the stipulations – you get me eating crow, or I get my choice of guns.

Any takers?

Advocates for Self Government:

Biden was the Senator who introduced the Gun-Free School Zones Act in 1990. In this same tweet, Kirk called out Biden saying that he “has done more to allow school shootings than the NRA or any Republican ever has.”

Although Biden deserves the brunt of the blame for creating this terrible piece of legislation, Kirk conveniently ignores on a key point in his Biden hit—the 1990 GFSZA was signed by Republican President George H.W. Bush.

It takes two to tango in today’s status quo of ever-expanding government. Gun rights have not been excluded from this trend. Indeed, the Democrats held both chambers of Congress during that time. However, it stands to reason that a Republican president, who is supposedly “pro-gun”, would veto such legislation. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

[ … ]

Generic Republicans can huff and puff about being pro-gun, but they too have been complicit in advancing gun control. As a matter of fact, it was a Republican Governor, Rick Scott, who signed Florida’s most expansive gun control law to date following the Parkland shooting.

There is something more at play with regards to why gun control continues to move forward. It’s not just about electing the “right” Republicans.

Ultimately, it boils down to changing the culture and the political environment around politicians in order to get them to behave accordingly. Bad politics follows bad ideas.

The author still hasn’t put his finger on exactly what’s wrong.  He understands the ailment, but not its cause.  Thus he cannot prescribe a cure.  Here it is for you.

In God’s economy, there are three institutions: Family, Church and State.  When either usurps the role of another and takes to itself the province belonging elsewhere, it is an affront to God’s laws.

God has decreed that the family would raise children and teach them moral values as well as create a society of education, work and play.  The Church is the moral institution for the family – not against it, but as an aid.  The state’s rightful task is to punish evil-doers and protect boundaries of the state.

It isn’t the state’s proper function to teach ethics, encourage morals, attempt to eradicate sin, or enhance man’s behavior towards good.  That is a usurpation of the power and authority belonging to other institutions.  It also isn’t the job of the government (the state) to dispense grace, e.g., largesse, meals, clothing, goods, wares, etc.  That’s the province of the family and church.

God never blesses disobedience to His law-word.  He will never bless the state’s usurpation of the province of another.  That is an insult to the Almighty, high-handed sin, a declaration that the creature is wiser than the creator, the same sin that afflicted Adam.

Republicans have bought into the great lie just like democrats.  That’s why republicans often lead the charge for do-gooder, meddling, nanny-state programs to lift the poor out of poverty and control over weapons to combat crime.  Those programs will always fail.

Only obedience to God’s law will be blessed.